PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS PART B-JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING MANUFACTURE, vol.216, pp.899-910, 2002 (SCI-Expanded)
Arc instability is a very important determinant of weld quality. The instability behaviour of the gas-metal arc welding (GMAW) process is characterized by strong oscillations in arc length and current. This phenomenon was reported by Halmoy [1] for the short electrode extension and by Lebedev [2] for the long electrode extension, particularly as related to the arc voltage-current characteristics and the thermal inertia of the electrode wire respectively. However, with these studies, a complete theoretical explanation of the instability phenomena is lacking since the process is not modelled dynamically.